“And I’m the cure,” Crixus said, pushing himself to his feet. “This time, she’s mine.”
*****
Precisely two minutes and thirty-seven seconds later by human measure, Crixus awoke with his face plastered to the stone floor in Hades’s office and his limbs tied into a boneless knot.
His hand reattached itself at the wrist joint and rotated the full 180 degrees to come back in line with his arm, which was still wrapped around his opposite leg like the stripes of a candy cane.
Hades’s fingers drummed across the surface of his desk.
As soon as Crixus was able to speak, he rolled his good eye to Calliope, who stood over him with the hat in her hand and a smug smile on her face.
“If I wear this hat, will Vinnie be able to read my thoughts?”
“No,” Calliope said. “But you still won’t be able to read hers.”
Crixus held out his hand. “Give me the hat.”
Chapter Five
Vinnie knew what it meant to be a hunter. Sometimes the chase could eat through an entire day, and at the last second, your meal up and ran away.
Sitting on the rumpled bed in her empty apartment, Vinnie pressed a hand on the warm spot the bass player had newly evacuated. She could still feel him there, could still smell him and taste him, but only just.
The demigod had left her only crumbs.
Her boys had escaped while she was busy twisting that troublesome sot into an immortal pretzel.
Crixus.
He was proving to be more of a problem than she’d first thought. Perhaps the centuries had given him a taste of the wisdom she’d had to drink from a fire hose.
His thoughts certainly had more depth than the ones she remembered sampling so long ago. Now he only thought about sex every third minute instead of every third second. Another two thousand years and he might almost be capable of conversation.
If she decided to give him that long.
He had robbed her of her meal twice today, and hunger churned into a gnawing ache. Her limbs were heavy with it. If she didn’t feed soon, she risked slipping into Annwyn. The great nothing that had consumed the last of her kin.
Beings like herself who had been forced into obsolescence by Zeus and his pathetic pantheon of cronies. The Greek Olympiad had been so quick to make the Hell humans alone had created in exchange for their sacrifices and lip service. Their empty words and worship.
If she had her prerogative, Vinnie would remove this word from the human vocabulary altogether until they learned not just how to say it, but to do it.
How little they knew about what it meant to worship. At least ten times a day she heard the word awesome uttered by lips that had never so much as experienced awe. Or reverence. Long before humans learned how to count time, Vinnie had laid herself on the altar of art and let it feed from her.
She had given to this world something it couldn’t give back.
And yet they had the audacity to hunt her.
Vinnie’s blood was too thin to house proper rage. A correction she needed to make in short order.
Comfort food was clearly called for.
Something warm. Something substantial.
Something Italian.
*****
“Are we there yet?”
Crixus exhaled through his nose and shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid punching himself in the head. Well, punching himself in the hat, to be more specific.
Calliope had left out one tiny detail about the good ol’ pelt of Moritasgus.
It talked.
The fucking badger hat talked.
No sooner than the demigod had slipped the abomination onto his head than it farted and asked for a cookie.
For healing purposes, it said.
“You ask me that one more time—”
“You know, you might want to look into a shampoo without sulfates. Your scalp is really dry.” One of the hat’s shriveled claws scratched at Crixus’s forehead.
“Touch me with your gnarly little rat paw again, and I’ll break it off, so help me gods.”
“I can’t help it,” the hat whined. “Your hair is making me all itchy. You need better conditioner.”
“Itchy? I have a zombie badger on my head, and you want to bitch about being itchy?”
“I’m not a zombie. I am a sacred relic, you ignorant douchebag.”
“So we’re calling names now, twat-waffle?”
“Shit stain.”
“Fuck nozzle.”
“Cock thistle.”
“Shh!” Crixus pretended to lean against the corner of a building as coolly as any man wearing vermin headgear could. “People are staring.”
“What do you expect?” the badger asked. “This is Italy, and your jacket doesn’t match your boots.”
His pocket buzzed. Crixus pulled out his cell phone, saw the number and cursed.
“Talk.”
“What—” The voice broke off as it strained against a laugh “—in the name of all that’s unholy, is on your head?”
The concrete alleyways gave way to the cobbled streets as Crixus crossed into the heart of old Florence. He paused to flatten himself against a wall when a flash of red hair caught his eye. The woman—not Vinnie—giggled into the sleeve of her sweater as she passed. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Crixus grumbled into the phone.
“You look like Davey Crockett…from Hell.”
“Did you call just to give me shit, or do you have information for me?”
“Both,” she said. “I’m a multi-tasker.”
“We can test that theory another time.”
“He means he’d like to mate with all your holes,” the badger blurted. “He was thinking that just now.”
Crixus reached up and twisted one of the ears until the hat squeaked.
“Hey, be nice to that poor thing. I’ll call PETA on your ass,” she said.
A group of tourists swarmed together across the street, and Crixus slid into their ranks, still a head too tall not to be noticed. “I don’t think it’s fair that you can see me, but I can’t see you.”
“Those are the rules, Honeybuns. You know them as well as I do.”
“And not speaking your name aloud, is that one of the rules as well?”
“That? Naw. Helps me maintain a sense of mystery. I am the night, remember?”
She laughed. The smoky sound of it warmed Crixus despite the growing irritation in his gut.
“Let’s have that information.”
“One of my guys saw Lavinia near the Palazzo Vecchio. She had collected some street musicians and was chatting up a mime.”
“I’m on it.”
“So what’s the plan? No, wait, let me guess. You’re going to basejump from the Campanile, blow her head off with a shotgun, shoot her body out of a cannon and bungee jump back to Hades.”
“He’s going to throw a bag over her head and try not to get an erection while she struggles. Although now that he’s thinking of having sex with both of you at the same time, he’s getting hard already,” the badger reported.
“A man of action, huh? I like that.”
“The action I’m contemplating right now involves turning a certain hat into pillow stuffing.”
“He’s lying about this too. He’s—”
Crixus pinched the little mouth shut. “That’s more than enough out of you, Motley.”
“Damn,” she said. “This was just getting interesting.”
“If she’s on the move, I want to hear about it, okay?”
“Of course. But will you do me a favor in the meantime?”
“What’s that?”
“Try not to die.”
Crixus slid his phone back into his pocket and gave a warning glare to the group of punks sizing him up from across the road. “Look, Motley. Let’s talk about how this is going to go down.”
“If you keep calling me Motley, I’m going to tell Lavinia what you’re thinking. I don’t have to help you, you know.”
“You could,” the badger taunted. “But you won’t. Without me, you’d just get blown up again, and Hades will let that woman you’re in love with die while she’s popping out her cub.”
Crixus felt the simmering in his gut boil anger up into his chest. “Now would be a good time for you to stop talking.”
“I can see why you’re so upset about it,” the badger continued. “I’d be pretty cheesed off if some skirt chose a human hit man from Las Vegas over me. Although he’s a pretty good-looking guy, if you’re remembering him correctly.”
“Matilda is not a skirt. And I don’t want to talk about this.”
“You know, if you talked more often, you might not carry so much tension in your shoulders. You’re pretty stiff. I could heal that for you, you know.”
Crixus flicked the tail off the nape of his neck. “I don’t need you to heal anything. And I handle my stress just fine.”
“Bullshit,” the badger coughed.
“Stop reading my thoughts, you mangy bastard.”
“On one condition.”
A bead of sweat ran into the demigod’s eyes from the fur pressing against his already sweltering forehead. Italy in July with a badger hat was beginning to make Hell look like the Hamptons. “What would that be?”
“Let’s talk about that cookie.”
Chapter Six
In another life, Crixus could have watched Lavinia move through the piazza della Signoria for a hundred years and never tire of it. Her flaming hair was loose and long, soaking up the warm Tuscan sun like the carts of ripe tomatoes and peaches he had passed on his way to this broad courtyard.
Gone was the sundress she’d only been half-wearing in London when he’d interrupted her latest party. She had traded this for a simple, boob-hugging white tank top and a flowing skirt of emerald green that swayed in time with her hips as she walked.
She was a living rebuke to every cold marble statue around the perimeter of the square, though she easily could have stepped down from one of those marble plinths. For millennia, similar artists had been trying and failing to capture the very thing Crixus now witnessed: this creature, and the swath of untouchable beauty she cut in the world.
“If I was human, I would hit those hindquarters like something humans hit very frequently.” The badger attempted to whistle, but sprayed saliva onto Crixus’s forehead.
Crixus exhaled through his nose and wiped the spit away with the back of his hand. “Could you keep your bodily fluids, which, frankly I am distressed to find out you still have, to yourself?”
“Isn’t this how males address females in this day? I’m just trying to blend in.”
“You’re a talking animal hat, and I’m wearing you. I think our chances of blending are pretty much shot.”
“Then how is this plan of your sneaking up on her supposed to work?”
“I’m going to count on her entourage to keep her occupied.” Crixus eyed the crowd of horny satellites orbiting Vinnie. The desire to relieve them of their spines and piss in the trench it made was overwhelming. “Let’s move.”
They gave up their protected spot in the shadows beside the Uffizi museum and waded through the crowd. Among the small list of things Crixus could count to their benefit was the location where Vinnie had chosen to hunt. Where there were tourists, there was variety. Where there was variety, there was cover. Among the street performers and vendors, he still looked odd, but humans were generally willing to forgive the odd man out in places where the population converged on holiday.
Crixus picked up a large map of the city from one of the display carts and tossed a wad of cash on the counter. The vendor was delighted enough not to ask questions. If he needed some impromptu cover, he could always hold the map to create a screen and feign a lack of direction.
“We’re getting close,” the badger said. “I’m starting to hear her thoughts.”
“She thinking about me?” Crixus asked.
“Yes.”
The demigod’s moment of triumph was short-lived.
“Mostly how she wants to kill you next. Ooh! She just imagined your body engulfed in flames. Now you’re writhing on the ground and begging for death. She has quite a vivid imagination.”
“Great,” Crixus said. “I don’t really need to hear any more.”
“Not even about the spiked pole? Or the tongue forceps? She’s most inventive—”
“No, I’m good.”
Crixus brought the map up as Vinnie walked through the gap before him and caused a violin player to saw across his strings. The bewitched musician dumped his instrument into its coin-filled case, clamped it shut, and raced after her like she was some kind of Pied Piper for marginally talented performers.
Once she had passed them, Crixus darted behind one of the broad columns in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and waited for her to come within the reach of his arm.
When he struck, it was fast and hard, forearm snaking around her waist and pulling her up against him in a fashion not unlike Giambologna’s sculpture of the Rape of the Sabine Women in the next archway.
If Crixus had stuck a fork into a light socket, he might have felt less electricity course through him than the energy crackling through his every limb when their bodies met. Her soft, round buttocks pushed up against the muscle of his thighs. Her heart beat hard under his arm. Her head pressed back against his chest. His hand splayed against the flat of her stomach to keep her hips pinned against him.
To any casual passerby, they looked like nothing so much as lovers, embracing in a lazy lean against the shady space next to the column. But their bodies knew what the humans did not. That she fought him with every ounce of her strength. Even now, her slim wrists worked against his so she could get her hands behind her.
Considering they fell at the height of Crixus’s most prized possession, allowing her to do this seemed like an infinitely bad idea.
“Hold still, woman. I would take great pleasure in crushing you into pulp.”
“Do not presume to command me, gladiator. I haven’t yet tired of watching you die.”
“Try it,” Crixus challenged.
He felt the breath catch in Lavinia’s chest.
“Go ahead,” he urged. “I’ll wait.”
He felt her body tense as she prepared to send a fuckload of murderous energy searing through him.
When nothing happened, she squirmed within his grasp and tried to turn and see his face. He felt her exasperation in every taut muscle.
“What did you do?” Her voice was cold and sharp as a blade.
“You’ll find out soon enough.” Crixus and Motley had agreed in advance that the best way to remain a solid threat would be for Vinnie not to see him wearing a badger hat right away.
“Perhaps you better send your friends off.” Crixus lowered his mouth to her hair as if brushing a kiss there. “I would hate to have to permanently damage them in some way. Or in several ways.”
Vinnie looked up and addressed the men who had stopped when Crixus had grabbed her. “Attendere per me presso l'appartamento.”
Wait for me at the apartment. One of the few benefits of being a demigod Crixus found he could still actually enjoy in her presence. The ability to speak or understand any language uttered by the tongues of men.
Lavinia’s tongue uttered this phrase with musical fluidity and a flavor that implied the wait would be entirely worth it.
The violin player gripped the handle of his case tighter. A caricaturist pulled his folding easel up like a weapon. A mime wrapped his hands around an imaginary baseball bat. Or a tire iron. It was difficult to tell by the width.
“Maybe she wasn’t clear,” Crixus said. “How about you all fuck off, or I’ll personally stomp a mud hole in each of your asses?”
He saw by their faces they had taken his meaning even without the benefit of translation.
The
y shuffled off grudgingly, casting many a disgruntled look over their shoulders.
“There,” Crixus said. “Now I have you all to myself.”
“Let. Me. Go.” Vinnie growled at him through clenched teeth, as primal as any she-wolf. Ready to claw, bite, and tear her way to freedom if need be.
The thought did nothing to help the problem Crixus felt developing against her back. “Just relax, Vinnie. We’re only going to have a conversation.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s at all true.”
“You’re right. Eat shit and die, you incompetent asshat.”
“Easy,” Crixus whispered against her ear. “The bounty on your head will be paid to me whether you are alive or dead. Seeing as you’ve created problems for me several times in a row now, I’m seriously considering the latter.”
“Please,” Vinnie scoffed. “You kill me? I think we’ve already established how unlikely that prospect is.”
“It’s more likely than you think. I have a weapon.”
“You honestly think that gun in your pocket is going to protect you? So far I’ve blown you up twice, crushed you into a ball, and turned you into a pretzel. And you’re putting your money on a really fast piece of lead?”
“What gun?” Crixus asked.
Her back stiffened against him.
“How pathetic,” Vinnie sighed. “I would have thought you had learned to control that thing by now.”
“You’re one to talk. Your nipples are bruising my arm.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, slave. You don’t excite me in the least.”
“Is she lying?” Crixus asked.
“Most certainly,” the badger reported. “She would very much like to see your manroot.”
“Moritasgus,” Vinnie spat. “I might have known. Like does attract like, after all. Vermin belongs with vermin.”
“Also, she is hoping that you can’t smell her arousal, because she is developing copious moisture in her netherparts. But she’s angry at herself as well since she vowed after what you did to her—”
“Shut the fuck up you little rat!” Vinnie surged against him, but only succeeded in further wedging her ass against Crixus’s thigh.
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